


Abandoned

by Breanna_B



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 00:09:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,385
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1919322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Breanna_B/pseuds/Breanna_B
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Colonel, Colonel Sheppard." The voice paused, listening to other sounds in the background. Anxious now, "John, we must leave now. We need to get Doctor Beckett and Yanta back to the gate before ..." The voice cuts off again. There is a feeling of absence, the person has gone.<br/>Back again, she is back again, trying to tell him something. His head hurts, he struggles to concentrate on her voice. It is a woman, her soft voice low but urgent. "Colonel Sheppard, we must leave you here." She is about to say more, but a disembodied voice from out of the darkness interrupts her, "Teyla, its time to go! Now!" Rodney's voice, as impatient as always. The woman reaches out and puts her hand on John's shoulder, heavy, oppressive. It is Teyla. John can't read the expression on her face, his consciousness struggling to stay aware of his surroundings.<br/>Then she is gone. Time has clicked from one moment to the next. He didn't see her go. Her absence is painful, a tugging on his chest as though he had been harpooned and was being reeled in on the end of the line, desperate to follow after her, not to be left here, alone and in pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Night

Woodsmoke drifted in the darkness through the pale, slender tree trunks, weaving between the semi-permanent huts that nestled in the shelter of the forest, before curling upwards to the canopy of dark leaves above, spiraling and eddying like wraith phantoms.

Colonel Sheppard blinked and squinted as he raised his head to the edge of the muddy ditch he was crouched in, trying to clear his vision through the acrid smoke, trying to assess the situation, map out any potential danger in the scene in front of him. He ducked back down into the ditch and rubbed both hands against his face, fingers reaching into his hair to massage his scalp, trying to ease the tension of a headache that was resting just behind his eyes. His hands came away wet. Sweat, mud? He felt the slickness on his fingers, smelt the tang of blood against the smell of the mud of the ditch. Had he been hit in the face? He struggled to remember, to piece together what had happened before he found himself in the gutter of the village.

_The sound of his own breathing, the dull throb of his heartbeat in his chest, his temples, in his aching legs, arms that felt like lead, as though he had spent hours training with Teyla, or Ronon, or, more realistically, both of them at once. The grit of dry dusty soil under his hands as he pushed himself up, forcing over-used limbs to work for him as he scurried into cover. The grunt forced out of him as he tumbled into the unexpected ditch concealed by the undergrowth at the edge of the clearing._

He turned back to the tableaux of villagers in front of him, pushing himself to stay alert, to concentrate. The orange flicker from cookfires glimmered here and there, sparking into flames and leaving black-red after-images on his eyes as someone tossed another log onto the fire closest to him. Flames licked up around the log and burst into brightness as the dry timber caught and flared up, letting Sheppard see the faces of the shadowy figures seated around the fire.

Strangers. He didn't know them, but they seemed familiar. He struggled to grasp the memory that fleeted away. He counted at least a dozen figures around three fires spread between a handful of huts, their postures showing that they were unaware of their observer. The sound of voices talking, laughter, the occasional gruff bark of one of the animals that seemed very much like dogs. The sound of a peaceful hunter-gatherer settlement, not expecting any trouble.

A figure came out from between two of the more distant huts and approached the fire nearest Sheppard. John reached for his weapon, alert, at the ready, but it wasn't there. _When had he lost it?_ He was in his BDUs, but had no vest, no equipment.

_Rough hands pulled on him, dragging off his vest. A small room, low light flickering, like oil lamps or candles. He struggled. Firm hands held his wrists, a body lay on his, holding him down. A voice, telling him to calm down, to lie still or suffer injury._

He must have escaped from his captors somehow. The blow to his head must have been enough to rattle his brain round quite a bit if he couldn't remember escaping.

"Well Doctor Beckett" he said to himself, "you'll have to wait until I get back to Atlantis before you can insist I stay in the infirmary just because I've got a bit of concussion."

_Beckett. Beckett was on the mission with them. And another doctor, the Athosian from the mainland._

The man had reached the fire closest to Sheppard. Tall, long hair tied back in a single braid that reached well down his back. Clothed in rough-spun fabric dyed in natural colours, Sheppard noted that he would be well camouflaged once away from the more open areas of the settlement and in the tall undergrowth of the surrounding forest.

Other figures seated at the fire joked and laughed, gesturing for the tall man to join them. He brushed them off, instead turning to talk to a smaller person who sat quietly, watching as the banter between the men continued. After some discussion the smaller figure rose. A woman, slender, petite. Sheppard tried to calm his breathing as they walked towards his hiding place.

The woman walked with lithe movements, slipping through the sparse undergrowth between the fire and the hut nearest Sheppard's location. The man walked with her, a comfortable easy lope. Sheppard could see that they were well used to the terrain and would be competent at moving between the trees and undergrowth in this wooded part of the planet. He would need a good head start to keep away from them. His body itched to be off and running, but he forced himself to wait. Any movement now would alert them to his presence. He just had to hope that they would enter the hut nearby, giving him precious seconds to escape. Their path was now obviously taking them to the hut, not straight to Sheppard as he had feared. He could feel the sweat running down his spine and between his shoulder blades, felt the tension building in his limbs as he schooled himself to wait.

 _Time to go_ , he thought to himself in relief as the woman entered the hut and the man stooped to follow through the low door. He crawled along the ditch further until it bore away from the settlement, then scrambled out on the far side, eager to be out of the sucking mud and onto firm ground.

Shouts from the village, a woman's higher pitched voice, followed by the bellow of a man.

_Raised voices, not shouting but eager, urgent. The bustle of people around him. He looks around in confusion and sees the cavernous space above him, the closed roof of the jumper bay, the humped backs of the vehicles around him. People - in uniforms, out of uniforms - milling around. John sees people with purpose, members of the medical team ushering others away. Doctor Beckett is working over a figure lying on a stretcher. John stays back, keeping out of the way. He makes his way to the door, standing to the side to allow the others to go through first. They have a confidence in their movements, well trained, following protocol. He doesn't see faces, cannot distinguish who is in the room with him. Uniforms of medical personnel and other expedition members, non-uniforms of native Pegasus residents, his only indication of who they are. Only one figure stands out amongst the crowd, John's eyes drawn to him as he surged through the doorway with the rest of them. A uniform, a strong figure, and cradled in his arms a girl-child, bloody cloths covering her face._

The village was active now, people moving around in the darkness, dogs whining, people calling to each other. The alarm was being raised. They must have discovered his escape. Sheppard lurched through the undergrowth, trying to make as much headway as possible, as quietly as possible. The knee high bracken gradually increasing in height until it reached well over Sheppard's head, but he dared not stop and hide. He needed to find somewhere safer before he could stop, a more defendable location.


	2. Morning

_"Colonel, Colonel Sheppard." The voice paused, listening to other sounds in the background. Anxious now, "John, we must leave now. We need to get Doctor Beckett and Yanta back to the gate before ..." The voice cuts off again. There is a feeling of absence, the person has gone._

_Back again, she is back again, trying to tell him something. His head hurts, he struggles to concentrate on her voice. It is a woman, her soft voice low but urgent. "Colonel Sheppard, we must leave you here." She is about to say more, but a disembodied voice from out of the darkness interrupts her, "Teyla, its time to go! Now!" Rodney's voice, as impatient as always. The woman reaches out and puts her hand on John's shoulder, heavy, oppressive. It is Teyla. John can't read the expression on her face, his consciousness struggling to stay aware of his surroundings._

_Then she is gone. Time has clicked from one moment to the next. He didn't see her go. Her absence is painful, a tugging on his chest as though he had been harpooned and was being reeled in on the end of the line, desperate to follow after her, not to be left here, alone and in pain._

Sheppard wakes with a start, a gasp, tight chest. The headache of the previous night slammed into his skull, then his senses kicked in, reminding him of where he was. Alone, on a narrow ledge on the sandstone cliffside he had managed to climb in the darkness, on an unknown planet with an unknown threat.

He winced as he stirred, the ache of his body competing with the roar of his headache and the dry rasp as he breathed in the morning air. He had to find water, he had drunk nothing since he had escaped the native settlement, and events leading up to that were still a blur in his mind.

_He is in the briefing room, others are there, shadowy figures, yet familiar. They are standing. What they are discussing too urgent even for them to sit._

_"The stargate is in a deep chasm in the rocks. There is no way that a jumper would be able to make its way through the gorge as it narrows considerably in close proximity to the gate." Other voices, making comments, asking questions._

_She is speaking again, her soft accent tainting the words. "Both myself and Yanta must be there to attempt to negotiate with them. We have a history with them as our people traded with them many years ago. They can be a very...cautious people, it is important that we offer them talks with people that they have trusted in the past."_

_He feels a tenseness, alert to danger, concerned about what might happen to his team once they step through the stargate._

He spent the morning dodging search parties, groups of two or three of the villagers hunting through the forest. He was surprised that none of them had any of their dogs with them, presumably left back at the village. It crossed his mind briefly that perhaps they couldn't be trained to follow a scent like earth dogs, or maybe there was a taboo on using them to track another human. _Teyla would know_ , he thought to himself, but quashed that thought quickly, aching as he remembered he was alone, trying not to think about how moving undetected through hostile territory feels much more comfortable when you have a team mate watching your six while you scout ahead.

_Its much easier to hide quickly, though_ , Sheppard added the thought to his internal dialogue as he hauled himself up into the branches of a convenient tree, scrabbling to get concealed as he heard the sounds of people approaching. Footsteps, the swish of low level plant life being brushed out of the way. Talking. That was unusual, the hunting parties he had managed to avoid so far had been mute as they scoured the woods.

They seemed to be coming his way. He fidgeted on his branch, trying to get in a position to see the ground below, and who was there, ending up with his head half hanging from the branch, his view of the world upside down.

Two figures approaching from one direction, another meeting them in a small semi-clearing a little way off from Sheppard's tree. He could see the back of the third person, but branches were obstructing most of Sheppard's view of the pair the figure had intercepted. They were all dressed in natural fabrics and leather, _so, not Atlantis personnel_. Sheppard's vision blackened briefly as he hung upside down, but he could still hear voices.

_"They will not be expecting any travellers at this time, there will be no-one near the gate."_

_A second voice, "so there won't be any difficulties? No tricky welcoming committee to worry about?"_

_"We will have to journey deep into their territory in order to locate them."_

_John is standing by the stargate on Atlantis, geared up and ready to go, cradling his P90. The wormhole is open and the scene is bathed in the blue light of the event horizon. He is facing the stargate, his eyes watching the mesmerising ripples on the water-like surface. He feels fuzzy, as though underwater himself._

_Teyla's voice brings him back into focus again._

_"It is very important, for my people as well as your own, that we are successful in our dealings on this mission."_

_"If they won't be at the gate, then how will we find them?" the second voice again. John realises it is his own._

_"I am sure we will succeed. I have travelled to their settlements on a couple of previous visits when we had been trading with them. It is some distance from the stargate, a couple of hours on foot, but I remember the way."_

_John watched her as the smile that was meant to be reassuring failed to reach her eyes. She looked worried about something, more so than usual when setting off on a mission. Was she hiding something?_

"Perhaps we can work together to achieve our goal?" It was Teyla's voice that Sheppard could hear from the two obscured figures. Did that mean the other was Ronon? His brief surge of relief quickly suppressed by the realisation that she was working with the very people who were searching for him. Was that the concern that had been in her face as they stood in the gate room waiting to depart? Had she been concerned that he would find out about her treachery? She had been here before on trading missions, she had admitted as much, but would she betray the team members from earth? If it was for the good of the Athosian people, maybe. Sheppard knew that to be a leader sometimes you had to be ruthless. He reviewed the snapshot of conversation that he remembered, recollecting the distinction she placed between her people and his.

Ice seemed to fill his gut as he watched and listened to the three figures move off towards the settlement. He could no longer depend on Teyla. And who would Ronon side with? Newcomers to the Pegasus galaxy, or people who understood living with the wraith threat for a lifetime?

It was time to go. He needed to get back to the gate, warn Atlantis, if they didn't already know of the betrayal.


	3. Afternoon

_The air is stifling in the canyon, the soft limestone walls radiating the heat they had soaked up from the sun over the course of the day, and there is no breeze to stir the dry air. The gorge seems to stop abruptly ahead of them, then John notices shallow steps carved into the cliff face that blocks the end of the deep, narrow valley._

_"It is not far from here to the river," Teyla turns back to John as she talks to him, "once we reach the river you must walk carefully, watch your footing as there are many deep holes and pits, often hidden by the rich plant life. The power of the water has worn away areas of the river bed, digging these holes in the ground. The river now drops into these sinkholes further away, but they say that it once flowed along this gorge, many years before the stargate was placed here."_

_"The stargate's in a well defendable position, easy for people this end to knock out any unwelcome visitors." John was glad they hadn't had such a 'welcoming party' as they stepped through the gate. "And of course, if we can't get a jumper through, then the wraith wouldn't be able to get a dart through the gate without it crashing into the canyon before it even got all the way out the gate."_

_"Huh, I wonder if the ancients put the gate there or if someone else has moved it. That might suggest intelligence a bit more advanced than the typical 'we revere the ring of the ancestors' attitude that seems to be common in most of the people in this galaxy." The two Athosians rolled their eyes at Rodney's comments._

_"Perhaps when this is over you can send a geology team to check it out." Doctor Beckett had caught up with Rodney at the cliff steps, "I'm sure they'll be able to tell you how long ago the canyon was formed." "Yes, yes, I'm sure they could, but by the time that happens we'll already know what level of development these people are at because we'll have met them already. I'm sure Elizabeth would rather spend resources on more useful projects, not just idle speculation about where some river flowed thousands of years ago."_

Sheppard scanned the view of the river in front of him cautiously, hanging back in the undergrowth before committing himself to a move into open ground. He had shadowed the river downstream, keeping back from the more exposed river bank but staying close enough to hear the roar of the swiftly flowing water. The steep cliff side of the gorge had now pushed him closer towards the river, bringing him out on a shallow bluff overlooking the river's end. He was across the water from where they had approached the river on their way to meet the natives of the planet, and as Teyla had described it, the land was littered with boulders and sinkholes, a treacherous terrain, and not much further downstream the rich plant life irrigated by the abundant water gave way to more arid species as the river took one last fall into a deep cauldron before continuing its unexplored route underground.

He could see no sign of any other person. It seemed as though everyone had given up on him, he hadn't had to dodge search parties since he had met the river and made his way downstream. He hadn't seen anyone from Atlantis either. Surely Doctor Weir would have sent some sort of search party when he hadn't radioed in on schedule.

The coast looked clear, he could even see a flock of birds gathered towards the far edge of the river, white specks against the green vegetation, obviously finding their food in the life-abundant valley, the odd one or two fluttering up to circle briefly before settling down again amongst their neighbours, the flock undisturbed.

Halfway across Sheppard wished that the plant life had had a chance to grow a bit taller and provide cover so he could rest. The winter storms presumably brought floods of water and debris down the valley, scouring the landscape of larger plants, leaving only low growing shrubs and annual plants to survive. The going had been much more difficult than he had anticipated, carefully stepping from stone to stone, balancing precariously and testing the firmness of his footing, and now he found himself sweating under the mid afternoon sun. He could see why the villagers didn't live at this end of the valley, despite the rich pickings of birds and the possibility of any of the plants being edible. The sun on this planet was among the strongest he had experienced, definitely hotter than on earth, and the shade of the forest would be a welcome relief. Unfortunately, not one Sheppard was planning on experiencing as he continued on to the gate.

After what seemed like an eternity of crawling across the landscape, but was more likely only about twenty minutes, Sheppard reached a huge boulder which provided limited cover for him to have a rest stop. He surveyed the terrain in all directions from his hiding place then allowed himself to sink to the ground, back propped uncomfortably against the rock. He had no canteen of water to drink from, not even a cloth that he could have soaked in the river to rub the worst of the sweat from his face and neck, but he sighed with relief as he let his taxed muscles relax. A relief that was shortlived, as now he didn't have any activity to fill his mind his body was letting him know just how worn out it was. The headache that he had come to associate with this planet was still there, thrumming away in the background, though whatever injury he had suffered to his face seemed to have scabbed firmly, a relief as it felt dry and didn't seem to have any infection from what Sheppard could tell from a careful exploration with his hands. Although it did pull uncomfortably whenever he made a different expression, ratcheting up the tension in his forehead.

Now he was stationary the flies that seemed to fill the whole valley decided to swarm around him, no doubt attracted by his sweat. Sheppard's arms ached as he reached up to ineffectually swat at the annoying insects. He knew that he had better not rest too long - the flies would attract birds, which in turn might give away his location, plus he didn't want to risk getting a fly bite and being infected with some sort of native malaria.

He hauled himself to his feet, using his sheltering rock as support as his vision blacked out briefly, _lightheaded from getting up too quick_ , he thought, _that's unusual_. He clung on to the rock for a moment longer as he regained his equilibrium, disturbed by the shaky feeling he was experiencing. He wished he'd managed to snare some food as he had escaped from the settlement, he didn't know when he'd last eaten.

Sheppard hadn't been on his feet long when he heard the shouts. He glanced over quickly to his left, and slightly behind, and saw several figures upstream at the edge of the river moving out carefully to intercept him. Not waiting to see who they were or even how many, he set off as fast as he could in an attempt to reach the gate canyon before they did. Throwing caution to the wind, he ran as much as possible, stepping on stone where he could see it, pausing to gauge his leaps from rock to rock, trusting that his landing point would be stable. His training kicked in and he assessed the situation, glancing back when he could to see the progress of his pursuers. He wished he had his team with him, and some weapons. He could see how they would move together as a group, rear markers covering the pursuit with weapons fire while the front runners made progress before stopping to provide covering fire while the rest caught up. He'd got used to having people backing his play.

 _"I canna let my infirmary be cluttered up with all these extra people," Doctor Beckett was sounding exasperated, John could hear in his tone of voice the desire to get on with more urgent matters_.

_"In my culture in this situation they would never be left alone." Teyla's explaining voice._

_"Aye, and they won't be alone. My medical staff are very well versed in looking after people in this situation."_

_"But they are strangers. It is the role of close family and loved ones to fill that position." Teyla's voice faded as she moved off, shadowing Doctor Beckett to continue their conversation._

_"And I understand that," the doctor stopped his work and turned to face Teyla. "When you don't have dedicated medical staff or facilities of course it is members of the family who care for the sick, but my people are trained professionals." He paused, looking around the infirmary, cataloguing the number of filled beds, assessing the bustle. "Look, I can let one person for each patient stay, but they must stay out of the way, and if any of my staff wants them to move, then they must move."_

_"Thankyou doctor" Teyla inclined her head in a one-person Athosian greeting, "I am glad you can accommodate us. I give my word that my people will not interfere with the work of your staff."_

It was a simple stumble which marked the end of it, or rather the beginning of the end. Sheppard cursed the distraction which led to him being brought to a halt by something so small and straightforward. His foot had caught, on a rock or a tough loop of vine, toppling him onto the ground. He instinctively reached out to brace his fall with both hands, but only one touched anything solid, clasping the gnarled branch of a wiry shrub as his body lurched sideways into a sinkhole. He found himself dangling over a deep chasm, the rush of water below him, legs and body swinging as he desperately tried to get a better grip on his lifeline.

A shadow passed over his face and a hand grabbed his free arm, right hands clenched together in a warrior's salute.

"I've got you, just hang on." The figure turned his head to shout to his companions, "help! Help! Ronon, get your ... muscles over here. Hurry, I don't know how long I can keep hold of him."

He turned back to Sheppard.

"Give me your other hand. God, that sounds so like something out of a movie. See, here I am saving your butt, and it's reduced me to using popular culture references. Come on, stop just dangling there and do something. You're supposed to be the heroic one, can't you do something, you know, something heroic to help out here at all?"

"Rodney?" Sheppard sounded incredulous.

"Yes, yes, its me, and you're you. Now give me your other hand!" His tone was getting a bit more alarmed as the weight of his friend dangling from his arm was causing twinges in his shoulder and back, and he himself scrabbled to keep from being pulled over the edge.

"You left me." Sheppard spoke quietly.

"What!" exploded McKay.

Suddenly anger spiked in John's voice, "you left me! How do I know I can trust you?"

"Of course you can trust me, its me, Rodney, you know, genius scientist, on your gate team, saved your ass, well, not as often as you've saved mine, but ... anyway, we're a team."

McKay could see that it wasn't enough to convince Sheppard, worry and confusion clear to see on his face. He dialled back the bluster as much as he could, "did you used to trust me?" he asked calmly.

The look of confusion on Sheppard's face again, he unfocused his gaze, searching memories and thought.

"Yeah" he finally said, cautiously.

"And what happens if you don't trust me now?" Rodney nodded his head to the long drop below. John glanced down. He couldn't see much, the daylight only penetrating a few feet down from the edge where Rodney was now lying on his front, both arms reaching out to him. He could hear the rumble of water somewhere below, imagined the power of it as it roared past the sharp rocks it gouged through. He looked back up at Rodney.

"That's all I've got, John. You need to decide whether to trust me or not."


	4. later

_The beam of his flashlight shines a white circle on the doors in front of him, the rest of the corridor in near darkness, only the ambient light from the moon outside, shining through a distant window. The door doesn't open. He walks further down the corridor. Footsteps. Someone is ahead. The warm glow of the hall lights spills onto the floor a few metres further on. He rounds the corner in time to see the doors to the transporter close. Atlantis turns off the lights as John hears the familiar whoosh of the transporter activating._

_John wanders the halls, he has no measure of how much time passes. He has no destination in mind, but when he reaches the gate room it feels obvious that that is where he was going. The gate is active, the gentle ripple of the event horizon the only movement in the empty city. Atlantis is deserted. The absolute logic of the dream means John is certain of that._

_The circle of blue light augments the weak moonlight creeping in through the vast windows behind him. He approaches the gate, walking step by step down the sweeping staircase, the illumination that sprang to life when he first entered the city lying dormant now, waiting. But not for him._

_He is alone, even Atlantis has left him._

He is suddenly aware, the disorientation of the dream fading. He hears the safe beeping of the medical monitor, the faint, far-off sound of water clapping against the base of the city, the raucous cry of the Lantean sea gulls, so similar to those on earth. There is soft dampness on his forehead, a cloth wiped gently across his brow, dabbing his skin. It feels nice so he nuzzles into it, a gentle sigh from a figure at his side echoing his own. He sinks again into restful sleep.

Rough, powerful hands are manipulating his feet and ankles, rubbing out the tensions caused by his fever. There is a strong presence at the foot of his bed, a deep voice tunelessly humming as deft fingers work out aches in his muscles. He relaxes into the touch.

Time passes. A tingling awareness of the city, the background hum that went with activating ancient technology, the feeling that means home. Nearby a window must be open, he could almost taste the saline smell that he would forever link with Atlantis. Smooth hands on his forehead again. He heard the rush and drip of water into a basin, felt the cloth on his skin again. He stirred, opened his eyes a crack, wondering who was with him.

She sat elegantly on a chair beside the hospital bed, posture upright. He didn't know how long she'd been there but could imagine her having been there for hours, or having just arrived, she would still be seated just like that. Behind her he could see the dawn sky through the narrow soaring windows, a freshness to the blue, the sun not long risen by the looks of it.

"Hey John."

Her voice brought his attention back to her.

"Elizabeth."

A brief query in her eyes as she responded to the caution in his voice.

"Doctor Beckett thought that you'd prefer to be in one of the more secluded rooms while you recover."

"Recover from what?" John tried to lever himself up to sit, feeling at a disadvantage lying down. Elizabeth helped him, rearranging bed and pillows until John sank back into them with a low sigh, almost worn out from the effort.

"Well," slight humour shone in her eyes, "you caught the Pegasus version of the measles."

"The measles huh!" John paused while he processed the information. "They don't do anything by halves in this galaxy, do they?"

"Well, normally only children catch it, and it lasts just a few days. Carson says they build up an immunity to it, so it is very rare in adults."

"Like the measles."

"He keeps on telling everyone that that and the fever and the sores on the face are the only similarities with what we call the measles and that it is in fact a very different illness. The name does seem to have stuck now, despite his efforts to give it a properly medically classified name. For a brief moment he was calling it after himself, as the first doctor to study it. There was a brief tension over that, especially when Yanta pointed out that generations of Athosian healers had been treating it, then Rodney suggested it should be named shepparditis after the first human from earth to contract it."

Elizabeth had been absentmindedly tidying the room, putting aside the bowl and washcloth, straightening the chairs that seemed to have accumulated in the room. She returned to John's bedside, retaking her seat.

"I notice that Carson's been calling it Pegasus measles since then."

John chuckled gently, "I guess he doesn't want me getting delusions of grandeur."

"Or for people going out deliberately catching a disease just so it can be named after them."

They sat for a while, John enjoying the friendship, the closeness with another human being that he'd missed recently.

"So, what else did I miss?"

"Well, the question is, what do you remember? Rodney said you were pretty out of it when they finally caught up with you on Roehal. Doctor Beckett said you might not remember a lot of what happened, that it might all be a bit of a blur for you. He was concerned for you when he found out about some of the psychological symptoms, and by then they'd had to leave you with the villagers Teyla had traded with for medicine. We were all worried when we found out you'd left them." A concerned frown crossed Elizabeth's brow.

"Yeah, everything was kinda fuzzy," John filled the pause before Elizabeth could say any more. "I think I was convinced we were under attack."

"On the planet?"

"No, Atlantis. I thought it was an attack through the stargate. I remember being in the jumper bay and the roof was closed, so I'd guessed we'd just come through the 'gate. We were carrying casualties." John paused, his breath catching in his throat as he remembered the little girl.

He felt Elizabeth's hand on his shoulder, her other hand taking his, gently clasping, bringing his awareness back to the recovery room. "It's okay John. Everyone's fine. You brought over some of the children from the mainland. You went with a team to Roehal to trade for medicine, Doctor Beckett and the Athosian healer Yanta brought it back and treated the children. Most of them have gone back to the mainland already. It seems that the illness is much less severe in children than in adults. "

"No kidding." John said tiredly. He clenched Elizabeth's hand, thankful for her calming persona. "If you don't mind, I'm still a bit tired, I think I'll have another nap now. "

"That's fine John. I'll be here for a bit longer. "

Sheppard looked at her questioningly, surprised that she wasn't going to leave.

"I could do with the peace and quiet, " she said offhand with a shrug. John didn't have time to appreciate her company before he drifted off to sleep again.

* * *

 

"Hey Teyla, " John beckoned the Athosian over when he saw her step out onto the deck. The door whooshed shut behind her and she visibly relaxed, taking a moment to centre herself before making her way across to the bench John was sitting on.

"That bad huh." He turned his face to look back out over the water as Teyla sat down next to him, her eyes studying the hypnotic roll of the waves on the huge ocean that surrounded the city.

"Sometimes I find the endless meetings we have here on Atlantis somewhat ... trying."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." John was glad that as he was still officially recuperating and Beckett had not yet cleared him for duty that meant he'd managed to avoid the worst of the regular meetings recently.

"Anyway," Teyla continued," we do not need to talk of such things at the moment. We are in beautiful surroundings with good company, let us talk of something other than contingency plans and supply manifests." She paused, breathing in the salt air. "How are you John? It is good to see you up and about."

"Rather than seeing me lying in that damned infirmary bed?" He turned to inspect Teyla. "You lot just wouldn't leave me alone would you. I'm surprised I got any rest, you know, what with Rodney tapping away on his laptop, Elizabeth giving me updates. And you, you were worst of all." He smiled indulgently, "disturbing me with your meditating."

Teyla chuckled, enjoying the joke. "Well, as you had an illness traditional to my people we thought we would treat you as we do our own. Doctor Beckett was a little ... apprehensive at first, but it turns out that sometimes the old cures are the best."

"Yeah, the doc mentioned that. Apparently all my fears that everyone had abandoned me were just part of the symptoms. It didn't help that you'd left me on that planet."

"And for that I am truly sorry John." Teyla turned to John and placed her hand gently on his shoulder, barely touching. "Doctor Beckett didn't think that you'd make it all the way back to the gate, and we had no idea your symptoms would be so severe. When our children fall ill with this disease they often experience nightmares, and we have found that they are calmed most by the presence of close family members. But Carson said you suffered more extreme symptoms."

"Yeah. He said it probably tapped into what I most fear." He paused. He was cautious, not used to letting on about the depths he often felt about things, but he knew he trusted Teyla, and the other members of his team, despite what his gut might have been telling him a few days ago. "I thought that you'd all left me, that you hadn't wanted me in the first place. And then I lost Atlantis. I was here, but she didn't want to know me."

"Colonel Sumner hadn't wanted you to come, when the expedition first came from earth?"

"No. He thought I was a loose cannon."

"Was he right, should you have stayed back on earth? Have you achieved nothing here?"

"No. I know that. I do good things here. I've got good friends."

"And Atlantis. Is she back with you? Do you feel her back in your mind again?"

"Yeah. It was one of the first things I noticed when I woke up in the infirmary. I knew that you had all been there, and I felt the buzz of the ancient technology, and everything was, you know, alright."

"You were safe?"

"Yeah." He looked out, not at the ocean this time, but the pier down below, and the towers soaring above.

"I was home."


End file.
